Cooking Light Best Cities: St. Louis, Missouri

A love for local produce and healthful activities keeps this
urban center well fed and on the move. You'll find outstanding
architecture, unique neighborhoods, live music from opera to the
blues, and plenty of parks.

Stroll up Delmar Boulevard to The Loop neighborhood. Here
you'll find one of the first restaurants in St. Louis to focus on
cooking with local products.
Riddles Penultimate Café and Wine Bar (314-725-6985,
www.riddlescafe.com) offers a
rotating daily menu that highlights the best of what's in season.
Items like limited availability Black Forest ambrosia (cantaloupe
grown on the banks of the Missouri River in Augusta, wrapped in
paper-thin slices of Black Forest ham smoked on the south side of
St. Louis) keep this venerable eatery packed.

Forest Park (314-367-7275,
www.forestparkforever.org),
at 1,293 acres, is one of the country's largest urban parks. For a
guided, narrated bike tour, call
City Cycling Tours (314-616-5724,
www.citycyclingtours.com).
They provide the gear needed and offer a 10-mile tour featuring 18
stops.

Just a few miles from Forest Park lies
Tower Grove Park (314-771-2679,
www.towergrovepark.org).
Its 289 acres of meandering paths give visitors places to picnic
and pause. You'll find more than 325 varieties of trees scattered
through the park (7,500 in all-the greatest variety in any of the
country's urban parks.)